Skiv
by PencilMonkeyGaiden
Summary: Where the falling Entity meets the rising ape, there's bound to be plenty of punes, and plays on Worm. A collection of DiscWorm crossover short stories. The stories will be independent of one another, except when they aren't.
1. Custody Prattle

_Where the falling Entity meets the rising ape, there's bound to be plenty of punes, and plays on Worm. A collection of DiscWorm crossover short stories. The stories will be independent of one another, except when they aren't._

 **Custody Prattle [Worm/Discworld]**

Summary: Taylor meets the PRT's finest.

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As I watched the two PRT agents climb out of the van, I noted the stark differences between them. Even though most of their features were hidden behind their helmets and armored uniform, it would be almost impossible to mistake one for the other, just from their build and body language.

"So," said the tallest agent, his uniform stretched tight over his large beer belly. "You're the one who called us about getting defeated by the ABB, then?"

"Don't worry, kid," said the shorter agent, waddling towards me with a bandy-legged gait that emphasized the overall weasel-like impression he presented to the world. Wasn't the PRT supposed to be a fairly elite pseudo-military organization, with lots of fitness training? Or was I being prejudiced, somehow? "Those gangs can be pretty tough, and you look like you're new on the cape scene. We won't make too much fun of you for it." He waved a hand at himself, then at his partner. "I'm Corporal Nobbs, by the way, and that's Sergeant Colon."

"Gotta show her our badges, Nobby," the obese PRT sergeant – Colon, I now knew him to be – chided the other officer. "Proper procedures, and all that." With some grumbling on the part of Cpl. Nobbs, two very official-looking laminated PRT-issue ID cards were produced from various pockets, and presented to me.

I inspected them as best I could, in the few seconds Cpl. Nobbs held up his card. "Uh, what's that sticky note on your card, corporal? If you don't mind my asking, of course."

He glanced down at the card, as if surprised at the presence of a small yellow square of paper attached to it, then nodded in satisfaction. "Oh, that's just a rhododendron, y'know, to let people know about my special note."

"...You mean, an addendum?" I struggled to make sense of this statement. "What special note?"

Sgt. Colon leaned closer, and replied in a loud stage whisper. "Nobby carries a piece of paper, signed by his doctor, to prove that he is, in fact, a human." Cpl. Nobbs didn't seemed bothered by this statement; actually, he straightened a bit, as if he was beaming with pride under his helmet.

"That's, uh..." I dithered, trying not to sound nonplussed, or confused. They'd probably just chalk me up as another ignorant teenage wannabe-hero. "That's great! Shouldn't your ID card have an addendum like that as well, Sergeant? I mean, I've read that it's standard PRT protocol for all personnel to undergo testing, to ensure that they're not parahumans? Capes work for the Protectorate, instead, right?"

The rotund PRT officer chuckled. "Oh, no, miss. You misunderstand – Nobby's note doesn't say anything about him not being a parahuman. It just certifies that he's, well... Human."

I glanced back at the corporal. He was, unquestionably, the scruffiest little PRT agent I'd ever seen. His dinged-up helmet gave him a hangdog air, exacerbated by his dubious posture, which had passed by 'bad' and 'awful' some time ago, and eventually settled down somewhere around 'woebegone'. His uniform looked ratty, with more than a hint of badgery and vulture-y. I couldn't even begin to imagine what he might look like without the helmet, mostly because the few glimpses of his pimply chin and hairy teeth made my brain freeze up at the notion that, in all likelihood, it was guaranteed to be downhill from here. 'Case 53?' popped into mind unbidden, closely followed by 'talking chimp circus escapee?'.

"Um," I straightened my back and shook my head, trying to push my nervousness out into my swarm. "To answer your earlier question: Yes, I did call you, but I had to borrow a phone from one the unconscious ABB gang members." I waved the purloined electronics in my hand at them, then hurried to explain, before they could question the oddity of a twenty-first century teenager that didn't have her own cellphone. "And I wasn't defeated by the ABB." I hooked a thumb over my shoulder, pointing at the darkened alley behind me. "I defeated them."

The two agents glanced around at the dazed and unconscious criminals. "Not bad, kid," the scrawny-looking Cpl. Nobbs commented. "How many thugs did you thump?"

I hesitated, checking the count again with my bugs. "Uh, thirteen un-powered gang members," I paused again, this time from the adrenaline pumping through my system at the thought of what I'd just done. "Plus Lung."

There was a long silence. Cpl. Nobbs banged his gloved hand against the side of his helmet a few times. "Sorry, what? Could you repeat that? Musta gotten some dust in my earpiece."

It took a few more minutes of explanations, and showing them the unconscious ABB leader I'd had my bugs restrain with spider silk for good measure, before they started to believe me.

"You actually took down frickin' Lung?!" Cpl. Nobbs gaped at the sight. "With bug powers?!"

Ignoring his quiet ranting, I turned to Sgt. Colon. "Well, as I said, first I wore him down with a huge amount of venomous insects. Then, when I guided some butterflies into his face to blind him, he screamed really loud and, uh... Soiled himself." I shrugged. "Guess he must be a... lepidoptero-phobe? I think that might be the proper term for it?"

Cpl. Nobbs finally stopped cursing about the mountain of paperwork they'd have to fill out over this. He nodded and folded his arms. "Okay, yeah. Makes sense."

"Really, Nobby?" Sgt. Colon shifted his bulk, turning to look at the other PRT officer. "What makes you say that? I certainly wouldn't have thought Lung would scare so easily."

"Well, sarge," Cpl. Nobbs drawled. "If I had step-kids, and I saw that their arms and legs had started dropping off, I reckon I'd be pretty upset, too."

I gaped at him silently for a moment, before I worked out what he meant. "...What?! No! Lung's not frightened of... Of someone's adopted stepchildren getting leprosy, or whatever!" I moved a few bugs from my swarm down, making them fly circles in front of the PRT agents in the most non-threatening manner I could manage. "I meant, he's scared of butterflies!"

The two PRT officers made Ohh-ing noises of understanding. Sgt. Colon shook his head, while Cpl. Nobbs poked a grubby-looking gloved finger at the insects fluttering in front of his helmet. "Lung the rage dragon, taken down by a couple of butterflies," the sergeant chuckled. "Who would have thought it?"

"Sounds like a million-to-one chance to me, sarge," Cpl. Nobbs said, as he walked up to Lung, and... Started kicking him in the back of the head?!

"Sergeant!" I yelped "Shouldn't you stop him?! That must be against regulations!" Sgt. Colon turned to look at the blatant police brutality – PRT brutality? – then walked over to tap Cpl. Nobbs on the shoulder.

The corporal hopped on one foot for a moment, looking around at us, then stepped back from the bug-bitten, and now slightly more battered, ABB villain. "Nah, don't worry about it, miss. I'm wearing special reinforced boots, see? Can't hurt my feet, even if I kick really hard."

I gaped at him, scrambling for a response to a statement like that. "But... That's not the point! You shouldn't be kicking him while he's lying down!"

Cpl. Nobbs inspected Lung's supine body. "Well, y'see, Lung's a pretty tall guy. Can't kick him while he's standing up, can I?"

As I sputtered and gasped, trying my level best to avoid shouting at a PRT officer who was... probably... just doing his job, albeit he might doing it really badly, Sgt. Colon had acquired a clipboard and a pen. "So, could I have your cape name, miss? For the report, y'see?"

I started to shuffle my feet, but managed to stop myself before I embarrassed myself in front of the two professio- ...well, in front of the two PRT agents, at any rate. "Um, I haven't really picked one, yet..."

Sgt. Colon rubbed his chins in a manner that was probably intended to look thoughtful. "Hmm... If you don't mind my saying so, you look like a Chitin Hero."

I recoiled in shock. "What?! Yes, I do mind, actually!" When Cpl. Nobbs turned to look back at us, no doubt alarmed by my sudden raised voice, I took a deep breath. Then, I gritted my teeth, and continued in a more level tone. "I understand that you've seen plenty of parahumans in action, before, and my powers might not seem all that impressive in comparison..." I gestured at Lung with one hand, hoping the movement would distract the PRT agents from the fist I was clenching at my side. "But this is my first night out, and I already managed to take down the leader of the ABB! Okay, so my costume still needs some work, but-"

"Yeah, that's what I meant," Sgt. Colon started to explain, barrelling over my protestations. "You've got that whole bug-shell theme going, it matches with your, y'know, bug powers. You could be a real live Chitin Hero!"

I stared at him blankly for a moment. When realization dawned, I did my best to quell the urge to face-palm. "Okay, I think I get what you mean, but, uh... It's true that it's spelled C-H-I-T-I-N, but it isn't pronounced with a 'Sh' sound, it's-"

Cpl. Nobbs took the opportunity to rejoin the conversation. "Pretty sure that nobody's registered as the Cheatin' Hero yet, sarge!" He leaned against the wall of one of the warehouses, lifting one foot and turning it so he could inspect the sole of his boot.

Sgt. Colon tilted his head. From what little I could see of his face, and the clues I picked up from his posture and body language, I'd guess he was surprised or disappointed, or possibly both. "Really? You didn't cheat when you defeated Lung, did you?"

"That's how I would do it, sarge!" Cpl. Nobbs piped up, wiping the bottom of his boot against the scorched and tattered remnants of Lung's jeans. He gave it another once-over, and nodded with satisfaction. I was sufficiently grossed-out by this casual use of a murderous parahuman villain as a doormat, I didn't notice Sgt. Colon had started yammering again until he'd already changed the topic back to his previous line of inquiry.

"-But if you don't like that idea, how about: Buggeration? Like, if you put together bugs, and operation?" He waved his hands about in a fluttering motion. "Scare the bad guys by letting them know that you can control bugs, with the surgical precision of... Well, of getting a butterfly to flap into a guy's face."

Cpl. Nobbs reached into his helmet, and pulled out a tiny cigarette stub - practically a cigarette butt, although I was being careful not to use that word around these two... characters, even in the privacy of my own mind. "That's not a lot of precision, though, sarge," he mused. "I mean, butterflies do that all the time on their own, right?" The stub of tobacco had been concealed somewhere by the side of his head, behind his ear I would guess, and ew, ew, _eww_ , he just raised his visor a bit and stuck the stub in his mouth, eww!

"No offence, sergeant, but uh..." I paused a moment, trying to find a diplomatic way of rejecting Sgt. Colon's suggestion. "I'd rather not pick a cape name that could be interpreted as a swearword, even if it'd mostly be upsetting to people in another country, and I'm pretty sure British people would object to 'Buggeration'."

Patting his pockets for a moment, Cpl. Nobbs stepped back over to Lung, and picked up a bit of discarded newspaper. "See, if my doctor told me he'd, I dunno... Surgically removed a splintery bit from my toenail, by waiting for me to trim it off on my own..." Cpl. Nobbs prodded the ABB rage dragon's backside with the metal-reinforced tip of his boot. Lung snorted, a small gout of smoke and flames billowing from his mouth and nostrils. The PRT corporal quickly jammed the scrap of newspaper in front of Lung's face, letting it catch fire. "...And then, he jumped out and cried: 'Aha! Mission accomplished!', I wouldn't suggest that he should go around bragging about it, either." Cpl. Nobbs held the smouldering paper in front of his tiny leftover cigarette, puffing a few times, then tossed the burning paper scrap on top of Lung's chest once the cigarette was lit.

Shaking my head to dislodge these disturbing visuals, I turned back to Sgt. Colon. "Um, speaking of Britain... Are you guys...? It's just, your accents..."

Sgt. Colon straightened to his full, not-too-impressive height, and adjusted the belt that strained to contain his much more impressive girth around the waistline. "Oh, the PRT takes all sorts, miss," he gestured at Lung. "And we also sort all takes. When we take in this fellow, we'll have to sort him under 'F' for 'flammable', ho ho!" He paused for a moment. "...Or should that be 'I' for 'inflammable'?"

My mouth opened and shut a few times, as I considered my response. When I'd imagined what it'd be like to interact with real PRT agents, I'd somewhat expected feeling a disparity in competency levels; I just hadn't thought I'd have to constantly adjust my evaluation of the PRT agents – and downwards, at that. "Um, maybe you should just stick with 'F', I guess? You know, for 'felon'?"

Sgt. Colon beamed at me – or at least, that was the impression I got, even with his face-covering helmet in the way. "Good point, miss! You have a glorious career as a hero in front of you, mark my words." He flipped a page on his notepad, and scribbled a few words. "Paperwork's always the most difficult bit, when it comes right down to it."

The compliment felt nice, even coming from someone like Sgt. Colon. Wait, what was I thinking? These were real, genuine PRT officers! They'd praised me for beating a dangerous villain! And they approved of my... skill at alliteration, maybe?

Sgt. Colon fiddled with his clipboard, again. "So, cape name of apprehended criminal: Lung. Cape name of hero responsible for the arrest, um... You sure you don't want to be Buggeration? We could call you Bugger, for short!"

I glared at him, any warm feelings from his earlier compliment forgotten. "No! That's even worse!" I took another deep breath. "Look, I appreciate your efforts to help me come up with a name, but I just don't want to be associated with any kind of... Sexual acts, or genitalia, or anything of that nature! Couldn't you-"

My train of thought was promptly derailed, as Cpl. Nobbs yelled at us. "Cor, look at this, sarge!" He was standing next to Lung, making wild gestures at the villain's lower torso, where the tattered jeans had finally started crumbling to pieces. "She bit off his-"

Eyes widening, I shouted: "No! That wasn't me! I mean, my bugs did it!" The two PRT officers gave me a long look, then glanced at each other. Their faces were still hidden behind their helmets, although Cpl. Nobbs was somewhat more visible – much to my chagrin; from what I could see of his face, he wasn't a classical beauty, or any kind of beauty, really – with his visor tilted to accommodate his minuscule cigarette stump. Nevertheless, the twitching in their legs, as they started to cross automatically, was a clear indication of their feelings on the topic of bug-induced necrotic groin injuries.

"So, um..." I coughed. "Okay, apart from that one incident, I'd prefer if my cape identity wasn't associated with anything... R-rated."

Cpl. Nobbs seemed to recover faster from his shock and disgust than his colleague. He was inspecting Lung again, but not from any intentions of providing first aid, as far as I could tell. "Blimey, sarge!" His voice almost sounded gleeful. Wasn't schadenfreude against PRT regulations? "The last bits are rotting off! Remember that time the PRT cafeteria put ketchup in the mushy peas? Her bugs need to brush their teeth, they do!"

I glared at him. "...Insects have mandibles, not teeth." Yeah, great comeback, Taylor. Way to go. Muttering made it twice as effective, I'm sure.

"Ooh, there's a good name!" Sgt. Colon snapped his fingers. "The Mandibbler! I know a guy, pretty successful businessman; he'll do you a sponsorship deal, if you include his name in your official cape name like that."

"...Seriously?" My voice had gone flat, probably from all the emotional whiplash. Totally not foreboding or apprehension, nope. "What does he do?"

Sgt. Colon wavered for a moment. "He's uh... A purveyor of mostly meat products, in elongated baked goods, miss."

"Mostly meat products?" I raised an eyebrow under my mask. "What other products does he purvey?"

"Oh no, miss," he shook his head, his bulletproof vest-clad stomach jiggling with the motion. "I meant, his products are made of meat, mostly."

I finally lost the struggle to maintain a professional exterior, and let my head sink into my hands. "...He's a hot-dog salesman?!"

Colon fidgeted with his damn clipboard. "So, uh... Is that a 'no' to Mandibbler, then? Only, I've still got to put something on this report, y'see."

"You could have a catchphrase!" Nobbs piped up. "All the cool capes have one. Like, you could go..." He struck a pose that was to heroism what red plastic noses was to the circus industry. "Surrender, vile villain! That's my final offer, and that's cutting my own thorax!" He stumbled a bit, then turned to see what he'd almost slipped in. "Hey, some of it's trickling down the sewer drain, sarge! Say, if any of the bits float off to Boston, d'you reckon we could charge Lung with public indecency in two cities at once?"

I bit the inside of my mask, trying to force down a scream, as Colon interrupted the colorful suggestions of his underling. "Well, I've got one last suggestion – unless you've thought of a cape name yourself?" I was too busy with not hyperventilating to reply, which he apparently took as a 'no'. "Now, it's a bit unconventional, so hear me out... How about, the Human Cent-"

"NO!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. "SHUT UP! That's disgusting!"

This was too much! How could these people ever have gotten a job, let alone work for the PRT? By the time I'd calmed down enough to consider things rationally again, I'd already run two blocks. I glanced over my shoulder, then searched the area with my bugs. Colon and Nobbs were still standing where I'd left them, at the edge of my range. Nobody else seemed to be moving within a couple hundred meters of them. I considered my options, and took a deep breath. Then, I took a couple more, for good measure.

Slowly, I forced myself to go back. I wasn't going to talk to Colon and Nobbs; that would only end in tears, or possibly bloodshed. Instead, I was going to stay out of sight, and keep an ear and a few thousand eyes on things, just in case Lung woke up and caused more trouble. It shouldn't be too hard to keep hidden; I'd just need to get close enough to hear what they were saying. I didn't need to stick my head out to see what they were doing – my swarm could easily take care of that for me.

Soon, I'd found a suitable spot to keep watch. The two PRT employees seemed to be milling about aimlessly, rather than, oh, securing the incredibly dangerous prisoner who might wake up at any moment. Somehow, this display of lacklustre professionalism did not surprise me at all.

"Why did she run off?" Colon mumbled. "Did I say something wrong?"

"Kids these days, sarge," came the scratchy voice of Nobbs, my bugs informing me that he was shrugging.

"What's so bad about being called Human Centurion of Millipedes?" I face-palmed again, although slowly, to avoid making a loud slapping noise they might hear. Colon almost sounded offended, like I was the one who'd made a social faux pas!

"Dunno, sarge. Bit of a mouthful, though," said Nobbs. "Mandibleful, even." I had a much clearer image of his movements than of Colon's, given the number of lice on his body. Oh, and fleas, and ticks, and eugh, let's just focus on their conversation, Taylor.

"Yeah, but, see..." Colon rambled. "It sounds like 'century', and 'million', and all that. Really big numbers, y'know? 'Cause she controls lots of bugs, and such."

"We-e-ell..." Nobbs drawled. "We could shorten it, make a snappy acronym, maybe."

"Good thinking, Nobby!" Colon cheered. "Farmers love bees, and bugs that help their plants grow! Of course, they get upset if the bugs aren't pollen their own weight, ho ho. Say, she could even earn extra pocket money by keeping locusts from eating farmers' crops." I perked up; that idea might have some merit, and it'd be useful to have an added income for-

"Sorta like a protection racket, then, sarge?" Nobbs queried. I slumped again. Scratch that idea off the drawing board, then. I wanted to be a hero, not another extortionist villain. If I wanted a life like that, I could have just gotten a job as a tax collector. "Anyway, I think farming stuff is called 'aggro', not 'acro'," Nobbs said. "Besides, I heard that kids playing games on the internet worry a lot about pollen aggro."

"Oh, okay." Colon deflated. "Well, how about just picking the first letters from each word in her cape name, like a code, and putting them together as one word?"

"Yeah, that might work, sarge," Nobbs concurred. He starting counting on his fingers. "Lessee, Human Centurion of Millipedes, that'd be... UCoM?"

Colon shook his head. "Nah, Nobby, human is spelled with an H. It's just silent."

"HCoM?" Nobbs scratched the back of his helmet, for all the good that it did him. "Can't pronounce that, unless you shuffle the letters around."

"What, you mean... CHoM, sort of thing?" Colon said.

"Great idea, sarge!" Nobbs cheered. "Chompy! Like the sound of chewing mandibles!" The sensations from the swarm of bugs on him told me that he was waving his arms around, and... Making little pinching motions with his fingers? Suddenly, he slumped. "Wait, that sounds a bit like Chumpy, that'd be too easy for people to make jokes about." Seriously? He didn't think 'Chompy' was already a joke, in itself?

"Actually, that might make it even better," Colon said, tapping his chin with a thick finger. "The girl had trouble thinking of a good cape name on her own, didn't she? So, we give her a temp'rary one that's really silly, and then she'll be twice as motivated to think of one, herself! We'll be doing her a favor, really!" Colon turned, when he noticed that his one-man audience (well, one and a half, if you counted the unconscious Lung) was paying less than rapt attention to his words of wisdom. "...What are you doing with the arrestee, Nobby?"

Nobbs was making chomping noises again, and curling his thumbs and index fingers like clacking pincers, while rummaging through Lung's pockets. "I'm frisking the perp for concealed weapons, sarge! Can't be too careful, right?" He fished something out with his finger-pincers; a flat object, it seemed. "Look, see?"

Colon was quiet for a moment, studying the situation. "That's a wallet, Nobby."

"Anything can be a weapon in the hands of a cape, sarge!" Nobbs argued, flicking through the contents of the wallet. He made a small, satisfied grunt, and pulled a piece of paper out with a flourish. "Look at this! I reckon Lung might be an assassin, or he's got that other guy, whatsisname, Oni Lee to do the dirty work!"

Colon leaned closer; I'd managed to sneak a few mosquitoes under his helmet, and their movements suggested that he might be squinting, or frowning. "Now, I agree that hired killers are wont to carry a picture of their next victim, Nobby," he lectured. "But I doubt that Lung is planning on killing the President of the United States."

"What makes you say that, sarge?" Nobby moped.

"Oh, lots of little details, Nobby, all of which add up to that grand feat of cogitatering which is known, among professionals, as deductive greasening – which, as you know, is a form of lubrication," Colon pontificated. "Or in layman's terms, looking at really gross pictures of blood-soaked murder victims, until you need to go have a pint of beer or three to keep your nerves steady, and you get to claim it as a tax deduction, because of how you're, uh, acting in the line of duty, and all..." Colon trailed off, then raised his arm and pointed at the paper in Nobbs' hand. "But the major clue, Nobby, is that this particular President is almost certainly already dead, on account of his picture being on a dollar bill."

"Damn! We were too late to stop him," Nobby wailed, as he crumpled up the money in his hand, and crammed it in his own pocket. "Oh, I hate when that happens, sarge."

Finally, the two stalwart representatives of the PRT seemed to remember protocol, and got around to actually securing their prisoner. They retrieved a pair of large backpacks from their van, unhooking nozzles attached to the packs through hoses, and aiming them at Lung.

"Now, don't you go skimping on the containment foam this time, Nobby," the fat Colon warned his partner-in-(allegedly)-stopping-crime. "I don't want to hear you clanking when you walk from all the canisters you've hidden down your trousers."

"Don't worry, sarge," Nobby reassured him. "I've already got three crates at home that I haven't found buyers for, yet."

They foamed Lung in silence for a little while. "So, d'you reckon he'll get anger management therapy?" Colon pondered.

Nobby shrugged. "Might help. I've heard that there's this therapist, Dr Yamada, works wonders with capes. Everyone says she's a great persychologist."

"Ought to call her a syke-ollo-gist, Nobby," Colon corrected him. "The 'P' is silent."

Nobby mulled this over, while he worked. "So, she's a quiet tinkler, you mean?" He paused, and switched off his foam sprayer, before turning to face Colon. "...Hang on. Five minutes ago, you said the 'H' in human was silent."

"Yeah? So?"

"Well, now you're saying that persychologists don't use the 'P'," Nobby persisted.

Colon nodded. "Not unless they're testing it for drugs, I guess."

"But..." Nobby dithered. "If you stop saying 'H' and 'P', then what about poor Chumpy? She's just going to be-"

I turned and ran, fleeing the scene as fast as I could possibly manage. Never had I been more happy about my decision to take up running in the mornings.

As I hurried, pell-mell, down the darkened alleyways, my swarm alerting me to obstacles and tripping hazards lurking in my path, I tried to put my thoughts in order. In some ways, my first outing as a cape had been a success: I took down Lung single-handedly, along with a dozen rank-and-file ABB goons. I'd even managed to interact in an almost civil manner with a pair of... individuals, from the PRT.

Honestly, the biggest bonus from this evening had arguably come about through meeting Colon and Nobby Nobbs. After experiencing the helpfulness of two local PRT troopers, I seriously doubted that anything Emma, or Sophia, or Madison, could muster at the height of their maliciousness, would even come close.


	2. BFFth

**BFFth**

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Amy Dallon yawned as she made her way through the hospital cafeteria, a tray of something that might laughingly be called food in her hands. At almost two in the afternoon on a Saturday, there wasn't much of a lunch-hour crowd, which gave her plenty of seating choices.

As she manoeuvred between tables, Amy idly wondered what Vicky might be doing with her weekend. Technically, her sister ought to be busy with homework, studying up on modus tollens; knowing Vicky, she was more likely flying around town, teaching skinheads about modus Dallons*.

She'd just made up her mind about where she wanted to eat her lunch today – she'd decided to sit by a window in the corner with the delightful view of the half-full parking lot outside, rather than the corner that always seemed to smell faintly of mouldy cheese – when she noticed a patient, sitting by himself.

Normally, she was able to force herself to focus on lunch without succumbing to the compulsion to help any sad-faced paraplegic children or trembling leukaemia patients that might happen to be in the cafeteria with her. That was part of the reason for her habit of sitting in the corners of the room, where she could sit with her back to the room, and not have to see all the people that needed her healing. This guy, however, seemed to be a really severe case; stitches laced every part of his body, and there were scars on his... actually, it was more accurate to say he had a few patches of skin in between the scar tissue, rather than the other way around. Wait, was that a metal bolt in his neck?!

Suppressing a deep sigh, she slouched over to the guy. "Don't worry, sir," she said through a fake smile. "I'll soon have you healed up, good as new. Those scars and stitches will be a thing of the past, in just a few seconds."

Slapping her fingertips down on the man's left hand, where it rested next to his glass of plain tap water – probably the most flavourful item on the hospital cafeteria's menu, really – she immediately began to- ...What the heck?!

"If it'th all the thame to you, mith," she vaguely registered the man saying. "I'd prefer if you didn't. I'm feeling quite healthy, and it'd take ageth to put all thothe thtitcheth back in plathe."

"Bwuh?!" she burbled. "Who? What? How?!"

The hunchbacked man turned in his seat to look at her. "Well, my name ith Igor. Pleathure to meet you, mith...?" He paused for a moment. "Um... Thorry, but you'll have to be more thpethific, if you want proper anthwerth to the retht."

"...Huh? Oh! Sorry, I'm Amy," her manners eventually re-asserted themselves. "Amy Dallon. You might know me as Panacea?" When the man – Igor, she reminded herself – didn't slump into fawning praise, or erupt with sudden demands that she fix all of his minor ailments, she felt it safe to continue; in fact, the near-total lack of ailments, great or small, that she could detect in his mangled-looking body, made her curious enough that she really couldn't have stopped herself. "Um, if you don't mind my asking... What happened to you?"

Igor just gave her a polite, if rather severely lop-sided, smile. "Oh, you mean the thcarth? Jutht a bit of thelf-improvement, mith."

Amy gaped at him. "You mean, you did all that to yourself?! How is that even possible?"

As she slowly sank down onto the chair next to him, Igor murmured a quiet "Won't you have a theat? Go on, it wathn't like I wath buthy eating or anything." Her tray of hospital gruel clinked against the table as he gently slid it out of her unresisting hands and put it down for her.

"Your cardiovascular system is in perfect working order," she muttered to herself. "Every organ is in tip-top shape, your lungs are pinker and fresher than my sister's fluffy bunny slippers – not that that's saying much, but still..."

Igor shifted in his seat, trying to shield himself from her intense stare with a paper napkin. He used his free hand to point next to his nose. "...Um, my eyeth are up here."

Her head jerked up, as she examined his face minutely. "Did you do all this surgical work yourself? On yourself?!"

"Oh, my parentth helped with the early bitth of it," he said with a modest hand wave. "Not to mention uncle Igor and aunt Igorina. Really couldn't have done all thith without a helping foot from them."

Amy frowned. "Don't you mean, a helping hand?"

"No, look," Igor swung one foot out from under the table, and lifted his trouser leg a little. "I've thtill got the one I got from my uncle, plenty of mileage left in it."

Amy felt her cheeks flush red, as she realized that she'd just interrogated a total stranger, while checking out his body. Violating some guy's boundaries in multiple ways, nice going Ames. Oh, and she was still ogling him, wasn't she? Probably ought to stop that, sometime soon. How did you even apologize for something like that? 'Sorry, my parahuman power wanted to check you out, and didn't ask me for permission first'? 'Don't worry, I'm lesbian, so I'm totally not interested in you in that way'?

Tearing her eyes away from the intricate needlework around Igor's ankle, she grabbed her plastic fork and stabbed a few scraps of half-wilted vegetables from her plate. Scooping the calcified cucumber slices into her mouth and chewing vigorously, she tried to find a suitable conversation topic.

"Um, have you considered working for the Protectorate?" Amy said, quickly amending her statement. "Or the PRT? Even if you don't happen to have a Corona Pollentia," and wasn't that a surprise? Someone with this outrageous degree of surgical skill, with no parahuman powers to account for it? "...I'm sure they'd still love to hire you, they're always short on healers and skilled medics."

Igor shook his head. "Oh no, that wouldn't work, I'm thorry to thay. They added me to their litht of potentially dangerouth delinquent prankthterth, you thee."

"What?!" Amy's eyes widened, although not to the same degree as the default state of Igor's left eye; oddly enough, even though the bulging eyeball still seemed on the brink of tumbling out of its socket, it wasn't bothering her that much anymore, now that she'd somehow gotten caught up in a conversation with him. "How did that happen? Did you... do something illegal?"

Amy winced at the clumsy way her question had turned out, but Igor didn't seem upset by her implications of him being a criminal. "No mith, quite the oppothite, ath it happenth. One time, I became aware of a... thomewhat theriouth thituation that wath in the making. In a thpirit of thivic duty, I telephoned the PRT to advithe them of thith, but they eventually dethided that I'd been playing thilly buggerth, and black-lithted me for it."

"Shouldn't they be grateful for that?" Amy asked, pausing between bites of her salad. "Once they realized that the, uh, situation really was dangerous, they'd know that you weren't puling a prank on them, right?"

Igor shook his head again, swallowing a mouthful of his hot-dog. "Thuch a thame, thith being a hothpital, and the clothetht thing to a decent bit of fried liver or kidney their cafeteria can muthter ith a common thauthage... Hmm? Oh, the PRT? No, unfortunately not, mith. You thee, they were very upthet that it turned out to be an Th-clath threat, when they thought I'd reported it ath an F-clath." He mustered a Gallic shrug, as he slathered his hot-dog with mustard. "I gueth the phone operator mutht have mithheard me, when I called them."

Mulling this over in silence for a minute, Amy pretended to be engrossed by her chicken sandwich. Sadly, it was bland enough that if it wasn't for her biokinetic powers, she probably wouldn't be able to tell it apart from the saran wrap around it with her eyes closed. "Alright, that sounds pretty bad," she ventured. "But did you try to contact Director Piggot directly, and explain what happened? She's fairly strict, but she's actually pretty fair-minded."

"Oh, yeth, mith," Igor said. "I got quite a favourable imprethion of her, when I talked to her. I even offered to help her, perthonally."

Amy's eyebrows went up. "Really? How so?"

Igor leaned back in his chair. "Well, I ecthplained to her that I'd heard people talk about how incredibly thick thee wath," he said. "And after theeing her with my own two-and-a-half eyeth, I could tell that thee really needed help with her thickneth, and tho I offered my athithtanthe." He twirled a plastic fork in the spaghetti on his plate, somehow sorting the meatballs to one side through the rotary motion of the soggy white strings of pasta, before scooping up the meat with a spoon. "After that, thee kicked me out of her offithe, and put me on the PRT'th litht of undethirableth."

"Erm," Amy warbled in a weak voice, trying her best not to laugh at the poor man's misfortune. "Perhaps you could have just called her ill, rather than sick?"

"Oh, hindthight ith alwayth twenty-twenty, mith," he mused. "Ethpethially for couthin Igor. Eyeth in the back of hith head, that one." Somehow, Amy got the impression that he wasn't speaking metaphorically.

"So, uh," she said. "Are you working for the hospital, now?"

Igor smiled at her, his face beaming enough to launch a thousand ships into a desperate escape. "No, mith. I jutht drop by thometimeth to do a thpot of volunteer work, keep my thkillth tharp, ath it were." Amy politely waited as he took another bite of his food, distracting herself with her own attempts at eating lunch. "Ath for my day job, I've found long-term employment with Mathterth Uber and Leet. They're- ...Oh dear, did thomething go down the wrong pipe?"

Amy choked and gasped, partially from the fragment of sandwich that she'd failed to properly swallow, partially from the powerful slaps on her back that Igor was providing. "S-seriously?!" She gurgled. "Uber and Leet?"

"Believe it or not, mith, I even got a title!" Igor straightened with pride, pushing his hunched back up into half a hunch. "You're looking at the new head of human rethourtheth for Uber & L33t, Inc.! I even got a new one, to look thnathy for the job."

Amy gave him a quizzical look. "New what?"

Igor tapped the side of his head. His skull rang with an entirely un-bone-like metallic noise. "Thtill got the old one in a jar, in cathe of emergenthieth."

"That's, um, a very nice head," Amy managed with a polite smile. "Very, ah, snazzy. So, what do you actually do for them? General minioning and hench-work? I can't imagine they have that much need for a top-flight surgeon to help them play video games."

"Oh, you'd be thurprithed, mith. Firtht, they wanted me to do thome general upgradeth to their phythiology," Igor explained. "Buffth, they called it. Of courthe, thinthe I'm not too familiar with all thethe new-fangled gameth that kidth play nowadayth, that led to thome amuthing mithunderthtandingth."

"Really?" Amy grinned. "Did you end up buffing their car, or something?"

Igor paused to think for a moment. "Well... In a manner of thpeaking, yeth. I mutht thay, the buth driver took it nithely. Very polite about the whole thing, he wath."

Amy felt her jaw drop. "What?! Didn't Uber and Leet lose their shi- ...I mean, didn't they get angry about that?"

"Yeth, Mathter Leet wathn't too happy," Igor admitted. "But Mathter Uber actually laughed about it, onthe we'd gotten them out from under the buth, and I patched them up a bit."

Amy pulled the ring tab on her coke, raising the still-fizzing can in a toast. "Cheers to suicidally stupid villains, long may they blunder," she declared in a officious-sounding voice. Igor seemed nonplussed, but raised his own glass and politely clinked it against her soda can. "Alright," Amy said after taking a drink. "What did the Darwin Award nominees want you to do, then?"

"Have you heard of thome game called Cathtlevania?" Igor queried. "They athked if I wanted to help with thomething called a frankfurter monthter. Mathter Uber wanted to get thauthaged up in a dithguithe ath one, thtitcheth and all, and they wanted me to be, well, Igor, apparently."

Amy nodded, finishing off her sandwich. "Haven't played any of those games, myself, but it wouldn't surprise me if Frankenstein's monster showed up in one of them."

"I had to tell them no," Igor said, sounding almost apologetic about his refusal to participate in some video game-themed crime. "They thaid I'd have to throw fireballth around, if I wath going to be a 'proper Igor'," he raised both hands and made air-quotes with his four thumbs. "Igorth, I thaid to them, are Igorth, and while we do not quethtion our Mathter'th thanity, we thertainly never get involved with the torcheth and pitchforkth crowd, either."

"Right," Amy gave a brisk nod. "No buffs, no buses, and no fireball-throwing. What does that leave, then?"

"Are you thure you want to hear about it?" Igor hesitated. "That part of the thtory ith... Well, there'th quite a lot of thibilantth in it."

Amy picked up an empty plate, holding it like a shield in front of her. "Sure, I'd love to hear it."

"Well... Mathterth Uber and Leet were having trouble with the thircle thtrafing in their firtht-perthon thooter gameth, you thee," he said, handing her a paper napkin. She took it with a grateful smile, wiping off the bits of spittle that had landed on her unshielded hands and elbows. Igor took a sip of water. "Mothtly, they jutht need me to take care of their thumbth."

"Sums?" Amy frowned. "You mean, book-keeping? Like an accountant?" She blushed a bit as she realized her mistake, when Igor waggled his fingers at her as explanation. Kinda embarrassing, since he'd showed her his extra extremities only a moment ago, while doing air-quotes; not to mention her earlier examination of his absurd anatomy- Ew, no. That sounded terrible, even in her head. "Oh! Right, of course. You mean digits, not digits." Gnawing on her chocolate muffin for a second, she quickly dropped the rock-hard lump back on her tray. "I've never had to deal with any patients like that, myself, but I've heard the doctors and nurses complain about it; apparently, there's an increasing number of kids who show up at the ER with bad cases of Nintendonitis."

"That'th right, Mathter Leet uthed that phrathe, too," Igor nodded, shovelling a heaping spoonful of I-Can't-Believe-It's-Not-Generic-Brand-Jello into his mouth. He frowned and smacked his lips a few times. "Thith tathteth like... Cardboard?"

Amy nodded. "That sounds about right. Good choice, by the way; the red hospital Jello is usually better than the green one, unless you like spoiled milk-flavour."

"Thankth for the tip," Igor said, pushing his plastic bowl of red goop away. "Thpeaking of which, Mathter Leet athked about getting green thumbth for both of them."

"Really?" Amy quirked an eyebrow at him. "They don't strike me as the gardening type."

Igor pulled out a smartphone from one of his pockets, the thin sliver of modern technology looking almost alien in the large slabs of suture-studded meat that served as his hands. "Mathter Leet thaid it wath for another game," he explained, fiddling with the device. "From the way he dethcribed it, it thounded like the time I worked for Profethor Hirnganthkaput... Ah! Here we go." He showed the phone to Amy, pointing at the screen. "Thee? It'th a game about a themetery, that'th been overrun by poithonouth weeds and other unpleathant greenery, and your loyal poth-humouth employeeth are tathked with removing them."

Amy looked at the proffered phone. "Um... I don't play a lot of these casual games..." The words: 'Not that she had much time for casual anything, these days,' went unspoken. "But I don't think that's how you play Plants Vs. Zombies."

Igor just waved off her objections. "I don't play thothe gameth, either, but Mathterth Uber and Leet inthithted that I thould have a company phone." As he took the phone back, Amy noticed that the rear side of it had been stenciled with the word 'iGor'.

Amy sat for a moment, thinking about this strange hunchback, who casually talked of working for villains and career criminals, but still took time to use his amazing medical skills at the hospital, helping people. A man who looked as crippled and mangled on the outside as she felt on the inside, but had kept his cheerful outlook on life; that wasn't just an act, she'd had skin contact with him a few times during the lunch, and it was exceedingly difficult to hide your emotions from someone who could read your heartbeat, respiratory rate, and every tiny micro-expression you were making.

She tried to think of the last time she'd had a pleasant conversation with someone who wasn't her sister Vicky, and came up blank. Then, she smiled at Igor. "Actually, I know a few games you might be interested in. I could download them to your phone, if you like?"

Igor eyed her outstretched hand for a moment, before handing her the phone with a shy smile. "What gameth are thothe, then?"

"Well," Amy drawled, as she started tapping on the small screen. "I considered getting you something like Dr. Mario, but then I thought..." She glanced up at him, and smirked. "Tell me, have you ever heard of Operation?"

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*The rule of modus tollens states how one may go from a given set of propositions to a logical inference; simply put, 'if P, then Q' and 'not Q' allows you to conclude 'not P'. Modus Dallons, on the other hand, insists that 'if you're too busy minding your Ps and Qs' and 'not stopping the E from harassing someone B and calling them N', then once you get some spare time on Saturday, you can conclude that 'not-sacks** really need to get punched the F up'.

**Corollary: Relax, Ames, I didn't cuss, look, I totally spelled it with an O and not a U, the teacher won't have anything to complain about.


	3. Onder Dog

**'Onder Dog**

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Spinning his halberd into a block that kept one of the giant monster dogs from attempting to bite his arm off, Colin dodged a lunge from another of Hellhound's gargantuan spiked canines. Momentarily stunning it with a swift blow to its temple, he pole-vaulted over a leg swipe from the third member of the teenage villain's pack. Granted, three dogs was a rather low number to be counted as a whole pack, but if you measured it by body mass, those three monsters arguably equalled an entire army. What was the proper plural collective noun for a huge number of dogs, or a small number of huge dogs? A horde of hounds? A legion of leg-humpers? Massively Multipuppy Opponents?

Having bought himself a few seconds' respite, Colin deployed his latest canine countermeasure. Quick flicks of his retinas activated the eye-movement recognition software in his HUD's GUI, triggering a cascade of other programs with technical acronyms that would give most people a headache from trying to coax meaning out of them. Oh, and it also started his Paralytic Otological Overload Capture Hardware.

As the alleyway was inundated with repeating bursts of ultrasonic noise, the humans present were barely affected by the sounds that, to them, were almost completely inaudible. The huge dinosaur-esque dogs, on the other hand, started to stumble and whine, staggering on their paws like they were drunk. Then, they collapsed to the ground, unconscious, also like they were drunk. Somehow, Colin didn't think bartenders shouting 'last call' had Tinker-tech dog whistles in mind, but you couldn't argue with results

Colin nodded to himself with satisfaction, as he surveyed the battlefield. Those mountains of dazed dog-dino were testament to the success of his latest piece of Tinker-tech. Of course, he wasn't going to call it P.O.O.C.H. when he wrote his report, or in any other piece of official paperwork, for that matter; Assault would never let him hear the end of it. Even worse, Director Piggot might cut his Tinkering budget, if she thought he was goofing around with it.

He probably could have explained that the... unusual names that he privately used for his tech was part of an ongoing creativity exercise with Dragon, but the other Protectorate heroes would almost certainly try to blow the innocent intellectual game completely out of proportion. It was most certainly, Colin told himself for the sixth time today, not some crude form of flirting.

It was simply a way to utilize the non-technically-minded parts of his brain, that was all. Plus, it was fun. Colin still got a smile on his face, every time he thought of the festive red-and-white colour scheme of the impressive new Tinker-tech watercraft that Dragon had surprised him with last Christmas*. Too bad they were both such busy people; the very next day, she'd had to sail it away.

Colin's pleasant musings were disrupted by an angry shout. "What the hell did you do to my dogs?!"

Turning to confront the new potential threat, Colin came face-to-face (or rather, helmet-to-cheap-plastic-bulldog-mask) with a furious young woman. "They're not hurt, just unconscious." His terse explanation didn't seem to reassure her much, but at least she stopped stomping towards him before she got close enough that her low growling would leave flecks of spittle all over his helmet. Colin had installed visor-wipers in his helmet for just such occasions, but still.

She started to snarl out another rebuke. "Idiot! Don't you know that dog whistles are-"

"Perfectly legal," Colin interjected. "But rampaging through a residential area on monster-dog-back is not. Hellhound, you're under arrest for-"

The girl interrupted his interruption. "My name is Bitch," she barked. "And you can't arrest me." She reached into her backpack with one hand, pulling out something that she promptly thrust in front of her. "I've got a lawyer."

It was, for lack of a better term, a dog. Colin was surprised to note that it looked rather scruffy and malnourished, as well as downtrodden, flea-bitten, misbegotten, and disease-ridden. Hellhound – Rachel Lindt, or Bitch, as she seemed to prefer – might not be a law-abiding citizen, but she was notorious for her fervour in protecting and looking after the canines that ended up in her care. She effectively ran her own dog pound, and if you tried to interfere with that, you got a pounding.

Hellhound growled at the dog. It turned a piteous, rheumy stare at Colin, and said: "Woof?"

Colin shook his head. "Even though people sometimes refer to lawyers as leeches, or vultures, or other types of animal," he lectured. "I'm afraid you can't pick an actual dog as your legal representative."

Even though she was wearing a mask, Hellhound's voice clearly conveyed her scowl. "Normal dogs bark," she said in a slow voice, as if she doubted his ability to understand the most simple of concepts. "They don't say 'woof'."

Tilting his helmet, Colin examined the sorry-looking dog that the villain was still holding by the scruff of its neck. It probably had terrier in its family tree, although you'd have to dig past quite a lot of manure to get to that root. "Are you saying that you've got a talking dog, that works as your lawyer?"

The dog turned a betrayed look on Hellhound, then looked back at Colin, and shrugged. "Most people never notice the talkin', actually."

Colin double-checked that he was still recording this encounter; a canine with a genuine ability to communicate in intelligible human speech could be the result of any number of things, and he'd have to study the video and audio of this conversation closely, later. He suppressed a snort when he remembered that the Thinkers in WEDGDG – or Watchdog, as most people called it – would definitely want to learn more about a talking dog.

"Are you a Case 53, then?"

The dog scratched a raggedy ear with its hind leg in contemplation. "Well, to be honest... If it's a case of doggy biscuits you're offering, I'm not too fussy about the vintage."

Colin frowned. "If you're as dog-like as you appear, why weren't you affected by my-" He stopped himself in time, before mentioning the private nickname that he'd come up with for his latest Tinker-tech, as part of the... creativity exercises he practised with Dragon. "My canine countermeasures?"

Shrugging as best it could while still being carried by Hellhound, the dog shook its head violently, ears flapping back and forth. "Dunno, but all the holes in my head seemed to pop a bit, when you did your fing. Thanks for that, by the way. My nose has never felt this unclogged, I can tell ya."

Hellhound finally seemed to grow tired of holding the dog, and let it drop to the ground. She stayed close, though, arms folded over her chest while she kept her head turned in a position that let her watch both Colin and the dog. It was odd; she almost seemed mistrustful of her lawyer. Granted, that was a sensible outlook in general, Colin mused, but Hellhound tended to show great rapport with canines.

The dog shuffled into an upright position on the asphalt, scratching itself thoughtfully. "Name's Gaspode," it said; judging by the tenor of its voice, and the view that Colin had gotten of the dog as it dangled from Hellhound's fist, it was probably a he. Gaspode proffered a grubby paw. "Shake?" He said, in much the same tone of voice that most people might say 'pleasure to meet you'.

Colin bent down and solemnly shook the dog's paw, while keeping a beady eye and a few motion sensors on Hellhound. "Armsmaster."

"Anyway, of course I can be her legal wossname," the dog argued. "I've got loads of experience as a barkister."

Colin shook his head. "Going by your accent, I'd guess you're from Britain," he said, not mentioning that his voice analysis software was telling him a great deal more than that; Gaspode's speech patterns were indicative of somebody from the parts of the United Kingdom who would be more likely to wind up on criminal charges, rather than be the one doing the defending of other people in a court of law. Of course, that was probably prejudiced, but at least computer programs didn't have to undergo sensitivity training.

"No matter how much experience you may have as a barrister, the US legal system-"

"Nah, not one of those," Gaspode interjected. "I said 'barkister'. Y'know? If people are slow to give a little doggy a bone," he shot Colin a meaningful look. "Ya sneak up behind their keister, when they're holding summat edible in their hands, and then give a little bark." The dog shrugged. "Let's just say, I've helped clean up all sorts of food-related messes, when people carelessly dropped fings on the floor."

"Really?" Colin folded his arms over the chest plate of his armour; his eyes flicked in carefully practised micro-patterns, instructing his electronic HUD to set up a specific new macro. "And how does this qualify you to practise law in Brockton Bay?"

"Well, for a start, I know that ya can't arrest my client," the dog declared. "On account of you having forgotten to habeas porcus."

Colin stared at the dog.

Hellhound unfolded her arms, and poked Colin's pauldron with a grubby finger. "What's that mean? Huh?"

Later, Colin would wonder why the girl didn't ask her legal advisor, but since he was already researching answers for that same question, he replied to her through force of habit; it wasn't the first time somebody expected the resident Tinker to have the answers to anything remotely esoteric that came up.

"...Do you have a pig?" Colin double-checked the translation app in his suit's on-board software suite. "Or, it's important that you have the pig?"

"Well, pers'nally," Gaspode said with a hopeful expression. "I'd be more interested in the actual bacon, as it were"

Browsing the translation software in his helmet's HUD, Colin tried to make sense of the latin. "Ought to be porcina, I think," he mused. "If you're asking about pork chops, and not just pigs."

The mangy dog shuffled a few steps away from him, giving him an odd look. "Listen mate, I don't care what you do at home," he said. "Sixty-nine-in', or fifty-three-in', or whatever it is you crazy kids call it these days... Just don't expect me to join you when you feel the urge to start, uh... 'Porcina', okay?"

Colin stared at the dog. "That's not... I mean, I wasn't... You were the one who..." He groaned. At the rate this was going, he'd end up having to delete the recording of this entire encounter.

"The point is, that's not a real legal expression," he tried to scramble back to a rational discussion.

"What, bacon?" Gaspode tilted his head, giving Colin a dubious look. "Don't cops get called 'pigs', though? Stands to reason that lawyers would handle the logical wossname," he argued. "End product of that whole police process."

Before Colin could make any rebuttal, Hellhound reminded them of her presence with a short, sharp whistling noise. Gaspode glanced back at her, then gave Colin an apologetic look. "'Scuse me, I've just got to, uh... Confer with my client." Colin watched as the dog shuffled over to the young villain. They started whining, growling, sniffing, grunting, and striking poses at each other that presumably spoke volumes in doggy body language. Suddenly, he regretted that his translation software's dictionary wasn't updated in Canine.

Gaspode scrambled back to Colin, and started pawing at his own neck. It looked like there was a tattered collar around the dog's neck; it might once have been blue, but accumulated dirt had rendered it closer to a grayish brown. "At this point, I would like to invoke the legal principle of... Hang on, I got Duck Man to write this one down..."

Colin looked at Hellhound, to see if he could glean any hints at her latest strategy. She just shrugged, and went back to glancing at her unconscious monsters dogs, fretting over their well-being. There was rather a lot of monster dog; it took quite a lot of glancing and fretting.

The dog finally managed to dig a scrap of crumpled paper out from under its collar. "Ah, right." Gaspode cleared his throat. "Quis puerum bene moratum est," he recited. "And don't you forget it."

Colin let his speech-to-text macro grab the pseudo-legalese sentence, checked that the transcription looked correct, and then transferred it to his translation software. Almost instantly, the result popped up in his HUD.

"...Who's a good boy?"

"That'd be me, then," Gaspode buffed a paw against his chest fur in a nonchalant way. "On account of the astoundin' rat-catchin' skills that I have. Every day, I get mo' rattum."

Colin shook his head. "If you can't present me with any valid reason not to do so, I'm afraid I have no choice but to arrest your client." Pulling a set of handcuffs from a storage compartment, he turned back to Hellhound. "You have the right to..."

His voice died out, as he realized that he was talking to empty air. The villain was gone. Had she abandoned her pet monster dogs? They were still lying on the street, where they'd fallen when Colin pacified them. In fact, they'd been down longer than his estimations had predicted... Maybe they were just really sleepy from all the rampaging?

On closer inspection, the huge mounds of flesh turned out to be exactly that: Piles of dead meat, that seemed to have cracked open while his attention was distracted by Gaspode. Each mountain of ex-dog-monster-material had a hole in its centre, roughly the size and shape of a regular canine.

Colin whirled to face the remaining dog. "You assisted a wanted murderer in her escape," he seethed, gesturing at the canine with the rattling handcuffs in his gauntleted fist. "That's a criminal offence, right there!"

"Hey, whoa," Gaspode stumbled backwards, as Colin advanced on him. "I had no idea what she was planning!"

"Really?" Colin scoffed. "You want me to believe that she didn't give you orders to stall for time with more nonsense, when you 'conferred' with her, just now?"

The dishevelled-looking dog seemed to lose a few more hevels, as his head slumped down and his shoulders sagged. "Rachel hardly ever told me anything," he muttered. "Said I talked too much, didn't fink I could keep a secret."

As the lie detector in Colin's helmet pinged 'TRUTH', he shook his head in bitter disappointment. "I see," he sighed. "If you'll excuse me, I've still got a patrol to finish." Turning his back on the abandoned dog, he started to march back to his motorbike, parked a short distance down the road.

He'd almost reached the bike when his HUD flashed red and lit up with words from the macro he'd cobbled together only minutes earlier: 'BARKISTER ALERT'. When a pitiful whining "Yip!" rang out from directly behind him, he was prepared enough for it that he didn't even flinch.

Turning slowly, he glanced down at Gaspode. "What, exactly, were you hoping to accomplish by that?" He held up the handcuffs that he was still carrying. "Solid metal is generally considered wholly inedible, by most mammals."

Gaspode gave him a baleful look. "Who's gonna cover my fees? That's what I'd like to know," he grumbled. "I accept payment in cash, bank drafts, and large piles of steak."

Colin gave a long, flat stare at the small talkative animal, trying to ignore the distinct lavatory odour that had gotten oppressively strong, this close to the dog. "It's no good trying to use puppy-dog eyes on me," he said. "I've got a reputation for being totally bereft of social skills and empathy, and I'm not afraid to use it."

The dog snorted, and scratched itself as it sat on the pavement. "Yeah, sure... But deep down under all that armour, I bet you've got a heart of gold," he said. "Or at least tin, or lead. Something soft and malleallebeble, anyway."

Colin folded his arms, trying to present the most stern and foreboding side of his public persona. Gaspode yawned. Colin waved his hands at the dog. "Shoo! Go on, get lost!"

For a moment, Colin thought he'd succeeded, when Gaspode got up and started walking. With mounting horror, he watched the dog saunter over to his bike, and lift one leg. "Y'know," Gaspode said in a conversational tone, balancing on three wobbly legs and halfway leaning on the bike. "All that talkin', and utter lack of bacon-chewin', is really doin' a number on my bladder. Why, I might start havin' a little widdle, right here on the street..."

Heaving a deep sigh, Colin's shoulders sagged. "Alright," he groaned. "You win. C'mon, I know a pizza place that's open all night. We can probably get you some pepperoni and meatballs, and such."

Tail wagging, Gaspode followed the defeated Protectorate hero as he slouched down the street. "I guess that'd be acceptable payment," the dog sniffed. "But nothing that you've been fifty-three-in', alright?"

Colin made another note in his HUD's electronic calendar, to ensure he'd remember to delete the recordings of this entire evening. Then, he made one more note, reminding him to research an alternative synonym for 'Case 53'; he certainly wasn't going to be using that phrase again, any time soon.

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*All of the Canadian Tinker's vehicles and mechanical constructions tended to have draconic or serpentine designs; suffice to say, the Jormungand Offshore Lightweight Limitless Yacht gave new meaning to the phrase 'Bearded Dragon'.


	4. No Pulvinicide, Just Exe-Cushion

**No Pulvinicide, Just Exe-Cushion**

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I was coming up with new uses for my swarm sense all the time; for example, hiding a few bugs on the underside of the dinner plates made it a lot easier to balance a bunch of them in my hands and on my arms, as I carried the sizeable load of food into my room. Could I patent an insect-based gyroscope? A dragonfly-roscope, maybe? Who needs a flywheel, when you can just use flies?

"Hope you guys like BLTs," I called out to my new room mates. Putting down a plate next to the bed, I glanced at Lisa. "You've mostly gotten the B, since that's probably best for your digestion." A second plate was placed in the large cardboard box that now took up a considerable amount of space on my desk. "And here's plenty of LT, and a bit of B, for you."

Murmurs of appreciation filled the room, as I settled down on my bed, resting a plate with a regular BLT sandwich in my lap. For a few minutes, the room was mostly quiet again, apart from the sounds of three mouths working their way through a plain yet tasty lunch. It was different from the kind of quiet this room had been filled with for many, many months; not much louder, but far warmer, far more companionable. Ever since Emma- ...Well.

I was about to take a big bite of my sandwich, trying to distract myself from the gloomy turn my thoughts had taken, when a small nose darted in front of my face. Staring in mute disbelief, my jaw still hanging open from the aborted bite I'd been about to take, I watched in horror as a set of pearly white teeth snagged a strip of bacon. One swift tug later, the crispy goodness had vanished from the insides of my sandwich, and was headed for the insides of the freeloader sitting next to me on the bed.

"Hey!" I cried out in mock anger. Actually, my disgruntlement wasn't all that hard to fake; this was some pretty good bacon she'd just stolen! "You've got your own plate – and you haven't even finished that, yet!"

"Sorry," Lisa chuckled after swallowing the last morsel of illicit pork. "But ill-gotten gains always taste better." She licked her lips, throwing a sly glance at the sad remains of my partially de-baconed sandwich. "Besides, I'm on a diet. Low carb, high theft, y'know?"

Despite my attempts at keeping up an offended expressions, I couldn't help but chuckle a bit at her terrible jokes. "Sure, you're a regular pickpocket, you are." Turning in my seat, I held my sandwich away from her, shielding it with my body. "Or should I say: Pig-pocket?"

"Aww, don't get mad," Lisa cajoled. "Get even!" She hooked one leg around her own half-eaten plate of bacon, and pushed it towards me. "Go on, steal one. I'll even look away while you're busy thieving, to make it easier for you." She started studying my floor intently, making little 'ooh'-ing and 'ah'-ing noises whenever she found a particularly fascinating smudge, or a rare endangered dust bunny.

Shaking my head, I pushed her plate back towards her. "Nah, I'm good. Besides, you're the one who's been living on the streets for weeks, and trying to avoid getting captured by that guy, Coil."

Lisa sighed. "I suppose you're right," she moaned, snatching another bit of bacon with her teeth and gobbling it down. "I do need plenty of fuel, to keep this amazing brain ticking over. Besides, I'd be a fool to turn down dietary advice from a mighty hero like Chompy!"

"Dammit, Lisa," I groaned. "I told you not to call me that!"

She just laughed. "Sorry, but that story about how you got your cape name is never going to stop being funny."

"Is that so?" I mused, watching her devour the rest of the bacon in short order. "I should probably get you some healthier food options... If you eat too much grease and fat, you'll just end up going from Thinker to Thicker."

Lisa's head bolted upright, her ears jittery with emotion. "Did you just call me fat?" One moment, she was lying on the bed beside me; the next, she'd leapt into mid-air and pounced on me. "You totally did! I shall never forgive this slight against my good name and character."

As she batted at my face and boop'ed me on the nose with wild abandon, I laughed out loud. "Oh, no! C-can I bribe you with more snacks, to make you forget about, uh, my insult?"

Her savage attack abated instantly. "Insult?" She chirped. "What insult? I don't remember anything about anything like that." She yawned, and curled up on top of my head, letting her tail dangle down the back of my neck. "Must be all that bacon you're going to feed me", she muttered. "It's already giving me ham-nesia."

I smiled. "Y'know, you'd make a really amazing Davy Crockett hat."

One of her eyes cracked open. "I know, right? I'm like a raccoon, only redder and better." She perked up again, before clambering downwards, draping herself across my shoulders. "Or I could be the world's greatest fur collar, whispering secrets in your ear." She leaned around to peer at me. "Hey, if I help you arrest a villain, could you tell the PRT that you got assistance in making the collar, from your collar? I wanna see the look on Armsmaster's face when he tries to parse that statement."

I didn't like ending a fun game, before it even really got started, but... "We should probably hold off on doing that sort of thing outside the house, until after Coil's been dealt with." Picking her up with both hands, I carefully put her down on my bed again.

"Yeah, you're right," she traipsed across the bed covers, tail held high, and took a seat on my pillow. "Still, if you ever need somebody to guard your backpack, just say the word. I'm small enough to fit inside it; anybody tries to steal your stuff, they'll need to get Panacea to give them the finger," she clacked her jaws. "On account of me having bitten their old finger off."

I started playing with Lisa's tail, until I realized how that sounded in my head. It was just so soft, it was hard to resist when- ...Okay, stopping that line of thought, right there. Fluffy. That was a good word to describe Lisa's... furry bits.

"So," I frowned, hoping that Lisa's power hadn't picked up on my little moment of inappropriateness. Judging by her smirk, my hopes were probably in vain. At least she was polite enough to refrain from commenting on it. "Until your morpho-whatsit field settles down, you're stuck as a fox?" It had sounded like weird Tinker pseudo-science when she'd first explained it, and our later conversations on the topic hadn't made it sound any less odd.

"Morphogenic," she corrected me. "And yeah, pretty much. I mean, I'm pretty sure there are things I could do to speed up the process, but none of the options are pleasant, as far as I can tell." She did a little twirl, showing off her sleek red-furred body. "Besides, I like being a fox. It feels very... Me."

I smiled, and nodded, and tried to think of something to say; since my high school existence had been basically one long bullying campaign, with a solid side order of public ostracism, my social skills had gotten rusty enough to require a tetanus shot.

"What do you think?" Lisa broke my maudlin reverie and struck a silly pose, resting her head on one paw. "Red is just totally my colour, right?"

I chuckled. "Sure, my fashion sense is definitely tingling."

"Awesome-sauce," the fox did a little twirl. "And my smile? How would you describe it?" Her muzzle split into a toothy grin.

"Hmm..." I rubbed my chin with one hand. "It looks very... Vorpal," I concluded with a emphatic snap of my fingers. "Like you're about to make a keyboard go clickety-clack, and then someone loses their head."

"Really?" Lisa giggled. "That's great! I've got to remember that one." Her grin faded into a frown. "...Although, I was actually aiming for vulpine." She planted both paws on her face, smooshing it into odd expressions. "You'd think that'd be easy with a face like this."

I reached over and ruffled the fur on top of her head. "Aww, but you have such a kind and gentle expression," I cooed. "Like you really give a fox!"

Lisa held her paws up to her nose, spreading her nostrils wide with two claws, and blew a raspberry at me. I wished I had a camera, but settled for sticking my tongue out, too.

"Are you two finished making silly faces at each other?" The grumpy voice coming from the cardboard box on my desk made me realize that the background chewing noises had stopped completely. A tiny bald head rose over the edge of the box, like a particularly cranky sunrise. Two clawed feet grabbed hold of the box's rim, steadying the turtle as it glared at us. It was a good glare. It was intimidating. It commanded respect. It did, in fact, put the 'rep' in reptile.

"You promised to help find my loyal servants, to repay your debt," the turtle grumbled. "But so far, all I've seen from you lot is a measly few vegetables, and plenty of cheap theatrics! This is no way to behave in the divine presence of Om!"

"Now, now," Lisa grinned. "You've got to finish your supper, before you can have any supplicants. Otherwise, you'll ruin your appetite."

"Blasphemy!" Om cried.

Lisa waved a paw in a dismissive gesture. "Sure, we'll find some blass for you, while we're at it. Any other requests?"

The turtle was glaring at Lisa, or possibly trying to smite her with a bolt of lightning from his supposedly godly eyes. "A little less sacrilege would be a start," he snarled, turning his glare on me. "And don't think you're much better! I mean, look at this tawdry box!" He gave the side of the container a dismissive tap. "Cardboard? Is this supposed to be a sacred shrine to the mighty Om?" He waved a leftover scrap of lettuce he'd impaled on a front claw. "And in case you're wondering, 'sacred' isn't spelled S-A-L-A-D."

"Jeez", I muttered. "Ungrateful, much?"

"Fret not, your holiness," Lisa rolled her eyes. "I'll rustle you up some worshippers soon, so they can get down on their knees again."

"You said that yesterday, and the day before that, as well," the turtle grumbled, pacing back and forth with angry steps. "And yet, here I am, bereft of any and all circles of angels, I have no-"

"Actually," I mused. "That box has four corners, and they're all right angles. So, according to basic trigonometry, you've got four times ninety degrees, which is three-hundred-and-sixty... Or, in other words, what amounts to a full circle's worth of angles."

Lisa cackled. "Nice sophistry, there! We'll make a theologian of you, yet."

"Oh, yes," the turtle hissed. "Let's all have a jolly good laugh at Om! You should just count yourselves blessed – literally! – that I've deigned to be squatting in this hovel, like some two-bit demi-god!"

"Well, you got a sandwich in your box," Lisa snickered. "Which would at least make you a deli-god."

"Barbarians! Savages! Pun-believers!" He glared at us over the shoulder of his shell. "I mean, would a hymnal be too much to ask for?"

Lisa and I looked at each other for a moment. Then, Lisa started singing: "Sacred godlike preacher turtle," and once I recognized the tune, I joined in. We managed to get through a couple more repetitions of the impromptu hymn, in something close to harmony, before our improvised lyrics diverged.

"Holy in the half-shell," I warbled.

Lisa's sang with much greater confidence: "Halo on a half-shell!"

I smiled at her. "I think I like your version better."

Om stared at us in silence. "Delightful," he eventually groused. "I can just feel the adulation. At least the tune was halfway acceptable, even though neither of you are exactly holy choir material. I mean, you're supposed to carry a tune, not just hurl it across the room."

Lisa just smirked again, and started chanting: "T-U-R-T-L-E prayer," over and over.

I leaned down, whispering in one of Lisa's pointed ears, before she could get started on making her own rap lyrics. "Are you sure he's really a god, and not just some sort of crazy Case 53?"

"What, do you have some kind of prejudice against talking animals?" Her grin took any sting out of her words. "But yeah, I'm pretty sure he's a genuine Dewey 299."

I hugged myself, rubbing my arms. "I'm not sure how I feel about that. Aren't deities supposed to look more... deific? Deified?" I watched the turtle cram the last bit of lettuce into his mouth. He chewed noisily, swallowed, and made an impressively loud burp for such a small turtle. "Heck, I'd settle for 'dignified'."

"That's all her fault!" Om waved an accusatory claw at Lisa. "If she hadn't barrelled into my divine manifestation upon this mortal plane, and stolen some of my holy power, I wouldn't have ended up in this crude form!"

"I would apologize, and claim that it was all an accident," Lisa grinned, buffing her claws on her fur. "But since I've already bragged about how my power let me know what the weird distortions in the air meant, when I spotted them in that alley where you popped into existence, you probably wouldn't buy it."

I collected Lisa's empty plate, and stacked it on top of my own. Frowning, I turned to ask the fox a question that had been nagging me. "It still seems incredibly lucky that there was some sort of power effect, right when you needed it..."

Lisa pressed her paws together, a mock pious look on her face. "Maybe my prayers were heard? It did give me a chance to escape Coil's merry band of kidnappers." She shuddered. "I almost didn't manage to jump into the burst of thaumic energy in time... My Thinker power really went into overdrive, trying to interpret it all. Mind you, I couldn't actually see any of the light show, but my power insists that there was a huge flash of greenish-purple light. Well, assuming that light outside the visible spectrum can have a colour... Null-traviolet, maybe?"

The more she told me about that incident, the more it sounded like the work of some crazy Tinker; still, I wasn't going to mention that where Om might hear it.

Lisa leapt up into my lap. "You're looking a little pensive there," she said, poking me in the stomach. "Ooh, I know what you need!" Her tail started wagging. "Some good old TPL&C!"

I snorted. "Most people would suggest TLC, y'know? That thing that starts with tender, and ends with loving care?" I tried to sound flippant, but Lisa still butted her head up under my chin, wrapping her limbs around me in a fox's approximation of a hug.

"I'm not much good at tender," she mumbled against my chest. "But Trolling PHO Losers and Cackling always cheers me up. I'm know you'll grow to like it, if you give it a chance. Although, don't give the PHO losers a chance. Just do what I do, and mow them down like wheat, with the sharp edge of scathing arguments."

"Shouldn't it be TPHOL&C, then?" I asked. "Oh, wait... Macronyms are different, right?"

Lisa grinned. "I knew you were a smart one!" She leapt down from my lap and scurried under the bed, wriggling back out again after a few seconds of rummaging through her small, hidden stash of personal belongings. Hopping back up onto the mattress, she opened her jaws and deposited a smartphone next to my hand.

I offered her a smirk of my own. "I know they're called 'consumer electronics', but I still don't think you're supposed to put it in your mouth."

Lisa stuck her tongue out at me. "Yeah, well, I'm currently kinda short on opposable thumbs." Her expression turned hopeful, with her tail wagging in excitement. "Speaking of which, any chance I could persuade you to do a bit of typing for me?"

I shrugged and picked up the scuffed and scratched smartphone. Grimacing, I belatedly wiped fox saliva off the screen with my sleeve. "Okay, I guess. Do you want to enter the codes and passwords on your own?"

She waved a magnanimous paw. "Nah, it's fine. Go ahead."

We sat in awkward silence for a little while. Eventually, I raised the phone and waggled its lock screen at her.

"Oh! Didn't I tell you that, already? Right, sorry," said Lisa. "Just type, uh..." She sat for a moment, staring intently at the glowing screen. "Nine double-oh nine!"

I frowned, as those numbers triggered a vague memory. "...You unlock your phone with the word 'boob', upside down?"

The fox watched me, sitting still as a statue. "Uh... Yeah?"

Another thought entered my head and started jumping around for attention. "Lisa... Did you use your Thinker power to unlock your phone, just now?" I squinted at it more closely. "This is your phone, right?"

Lisa dazzled me with her most innocent smile.* "Well, it sure is, now!" She tilted her head, and folded her paws. "Besides, can anyone truly own a thing? Did you know that possession is nine-tenths of the law? Or, aha, should I say: Vulp-'ine-tenths of the-"

"Lisa! What if-"

She shook her head. "Nah, the previous owner was a rich a-hole, or at least an affluent d-hole. That douche canoe can afford to buy new one, it's no great loss for him, and frankly he deserves to-"

"But what if-"

"Nope, no risk of that whatsoever," she chirped and tapped the phone screen with the tip of her nose a few times. "Nobody's gonna trace it, I've disabled all the-"

"I can't-"

She grinned. "Afford the fees? Of course we can, I've-"

"Okay, stop." I raised my hands in front of me, waiting for her to click her jaws shut again. Taking a deep breath, I pinched the bridge of my nose. "I'm willing to pretend that there's not actually any crime taking place here, if you stop answering my questions before I've even had a chance to ask them. Do you have any idea how annoying that is?"

Lisa just barked a laugh. "I know! It's great, right?" Her face quickly turned sombre when she noticed my glare. "I mean, yes, sorry, I accept your terms."

I sighed. "Whatever. Let's just... T the PLs and C."

Lisa started bouncing up and down on the bed. "Yay!"

"Do you at least have your own PHO account? Or do you just hack into other people's, when you feel like it?"

Her eyes widened. "Oh, there's an idea..." I had an awful sinking feeling for a moment, thinking I was about to become complicit in even more illegalities.

Then, she laughed again. "Relax! I have multiple accounts, to minimise the hassle when the moderators ban one of them," Lisa explained. "I use AllSeeingEye for semi-official cape stuff, but now that I'm temporarily foxified," she waved her tail for emphasis. "I've also got an account called WhyEyeDoubleEff."

Pausing in my examination of the phone, I glanced at her. "Seriously?"

She grimaced, rubbing her chin with a paw. "Mostly, I picked it for the irony, what with my Thinker power providing me with infinite TMI, and all that." She flopped down on the bed, giving a languid sigh. "I'm sure all the furries out there would be terribly disappointed; the world's only talking fox, and I have zero interest in yiffing."

We eventually managed to get the constantly derailing conversation back on track. After logging in with Lisa's 'fox-traneous account', as she called it, we browsed the site for a while. She provided a running commentary on the various topics and users, peppered with plenty of snide jokes and the cackling she'd promised.

Even so, she didn't explain every little detail of her online discussions and general trollishness, and some of the minutiae went over my head. That wasn't surprising, really; I tried to get online whenever I had the chance, but that was mostly limited to the few classes I had with Mrs Knott at school, and my occasional foray to the local library. There was no doubt plenty of recent memes that had passed me by, considering how fast things sometimes evolved on the 'net, and how busy I'd been with my new cape lifestyle, lately. I had total control over buzzing insects within my range, but that mastery didn't extend to buzzwords. Did that make me a buzz kill, or just an undercover buzz?

Eventually, my curiosity got the better of me, and I decided to bite the proverbial bullet. "Um... Lisa?"

She hummed in a distracted tone, deeply engrossed in the heated debate happening in cyberspace. "Mmmyeah? Wassup?"

I pointed at a specific word on the screen. "Why do people keep mentioning someone called Lenny, every time they've written a really long block of text?"

Lisa turned a confused look on me, before her foxy face lit up in sudden understanding. "Oh! That's not Lenny, that's LE;NL," she said. "It stands for 'longum est, non legi'. People write that when they've made a long post, and they're worried people won't bother reading it."

I squinted at the screen; she was right, of course. "Some people need to learn to write acronyms with upper-case letters," I groused.

After a moment, I realized that Lisa hadn't returned to staring at the screen; instead, she was staring at me. "What? Is there something on my face?"

She shook her head, tail waving with the motion. "Nah, I'm just wondering when you're gonna ask me about the CaTS."

I shrugged. "I figured you just mention cats in all your posts as a non-obvious way of bragging about your new foxy body, without the risk of letting Coil discover what you look like, these days," I said. "I mean, cats and foxes are vaguely similar, and people on the internet are crazy about lol-cats, and stuff."

Lisa giggled. "Not a bad guess, but it's actually C-a-T-S," she wrote the letters in the air with the tip of her tail. "Y'know? Cachinnans tabulatum supervolutans? You write it to signify that you're laughing so hard, you're rolling on the floor." She tumbled onto her back, and started demonstrating the proper rolling motion on top of my bed covers. "Of course, people sometimes abbreviate it 'CaTSup', but only when they're commenting on pictures of really amusing food items, like... Sausages suggestively shaped like wieners, or something."

I stared at her. "Cachinnans?"

"Yeah, it basically means 'laughing loudly'," she foxplained. "That's why you often see people write CAC, when they think something's funny."

"CAC?" I frowned. "I thought it was 'kek'?"

Lisa shook her head. "Nope, the only people who spell it like that are kooks, who deserve a kick in their co-"

"Right, I get it." I rolled my eyes at her. "Seriously, what's with all the Latin? Is that a new internet fad, or something?"

"Well," Lisa drawled. "A lot of kids use their phones to go online, these days, so... They're probably worried about Roman fees."

The phone tumbled onto the bedsheets as I groaned, slapping both hands against my face in despair. Lisa's half-yipping, half-cackling fox-laughter filled the room.

Om stared at us. Turtle faces are excellent at doing flat, disapproving glares. "I have no idea what you two are babbling about."

Lisa twisted around to grin at him. "Y'see, there's this thing called 'roaming fees', which-"

"I said that your gibberish talk is gibberish, not that I care about it," the turtle dead-panned. "That toy seems pretty useless to me, if you can't even use it to find some worshippers of Om."

Lisa and I looked at each other, then shrugged in unison.

The turtle started shuffling back and forth in his box, trying to draw our attention. "Say, do any of those inter-netters mention how much they love Om?" He tapped a clawed foot against the saucer of water I'd made sure to provide him. "Maybe there's some of them that use words like 'devout' really often, or list 'prayer to Om' as their favourite hobby?"

"Uh... Well..." I flicked down through the thread that Lisa currently had me browsing. "There's someone with the username OMWWC-fan, maybe that's like... 'What would Om do', only misspelled?" I winced. "Really, really badly misspelled?"

Lisa leaned closer, her whiskers tickling in my ear as she whispered. I jolted back and spun around, staring at the fox with a mixture of shock and disgust. "Ew! Seriously?! That's just gross!"

"What?" Om scrambled upwards, leaning with his forelegs on the edge of his cardboard box as he tried to get a better view of the phone. "What did she say? Do any of the Ws stand for 'Worship'?"

I whimpered.

Lisa glanced at me, then smirked. "Sorry to disappoint you, oh almighty Om," she chortled. "But it actually stands for Old Men With Wrinkly-"

"...Crosswords!" I blurted, clamping a hand over the fox's muzzle. When I noticed the odd looks that the two animals were giving me, I stuttered out an explanation. "Like, uh, t-they crumple up the newspaper when they get upset over difficult words?"

For a long few seconds, Lisa stared at me with a carefully blank face. Then, the fox perked up in another vorpal smile, and turned to address the turtle. "That's exactly right," she chirped. "That is precisely what people on the internet spend their time on."

Om scrutinized her with a grumpy turtle expression. This wasn't as noteworthy as he might have hoped, since all his expressions seemed grumpy. With a harrumph, he slouched back into his box. "Sounds like a bunch of heathens and pagan unbelievers," he grumbled. "They need a jolly good smiting, the lot of them."

Lisa laughed. "Oh, the ones with a pagan fetish often enjoy a bit of smiting," she cackled. "Even if they need to use special equipment to actually, uh, pag someone."

"Lisa..." I groaned as I face-palmed.

The fox bounded around on the bed, her tail flailing as she engaged in some rather graphic and explicit miming. "And once they've strapped it on, they-"

I lunged forward, grabbing her quickly and wrapping a hand around her muzzle before she could say anything else. TMI powers, indeed. Lisa retaliated by tickling my nose with her tail, so I promptly wedged her under one arm, and tickled her with my free hand. Distantly, I heard Om sigh, as he trundled back into a far corner of his box, while Lisa and I did battle.

Turns out that sentient foxes can easily beat humans in a tickle fight; even when the human in question is a Master with control over fluttering, squirming, wriggling bugs, this is still true, at least if the fox has a Thinker power.

Time, it seemed, for me to escalate.

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Danny Hebert unlocked the front door, and clomped into his home with a weary sigh.

"Taylor?" he called out. "It's me, I'm home early." He waited a beat. No reply, but he could hear noises coming from upstairs. Did Taylor invite a friend over to visit? Come to think of it, she hadn't had visitors in ages. When was the last time Emma dropped by? He snorted; people always said that your memory was the first thing to go.

Climbing the stairs and walking towards his daughter's bedroom, the voices grew clearer, along with the other noises. One of the people was definitely Taylor, but the second voice was unfamiliar to him; it certainly wasn't the red-headed Barnes girl, although he heard Taylor make some sort of remark that the other girl's "red fur's gonna look great with some tar and feathers". Were they fighting, in there? No, surely not. It was probably something innocent, like giving each other a manicure. Heck, 'tarred and feathered' might be teen slang for nail polish and eye-liner, for all he knew. Did 'tar' mean the nail polish was black? What would they call ordinary red nail polish, then? 'Borscht case scenario'?

He paused in front of the door to his daughter's room, and knocked twice. "Taylor?" The sounds of creaking furniture and muffled yelling continued unabated. They were probably just playing around, but... Danny felt a sharp pang in his gut, as he thought of the locker, and the bullying at Taylor's school that his little girl refused to talk about, and which just grew worse in his imagination.

Turning the handle and shoving the door open in a swift motion, Danny was prepared to yell, or punch a bully in the face, or... Something. His half-formed battle cry died in his throat, as he took in the sight before him.

Taylor was sprawled on the bed, with a small animal perched on her chest. Was that a fox? Didn't some foxes have rabies?! What was a wild animal doing in his daughter's bedroom? He was aware that teenage daughters usually acquired boyfriends or girlfriends, sooner or later, and some amount of petting was to be expected; while he didn't feel quite ready to deal with that, he was even less prepared for his daughter to start a petting zoo.

Both of them were wielding deflated-looking pillows, Taylor's clenched in a fist, the fox holding it clamped between its teeth. Several more tattered cushions were strewn around the room, sagging as their filling spilled from burst edges and corners. The air was thick with feathers, drifting like snowflakes. There also seemed to be a large number of insects flying around. If all those had come from Taylor's pillows, too, they wouldn't need to worry about bed bugs biting - they'd be trampled in their sleep by the stampede, long before they felt the bites.

Danny tried to think of something to say. Maybe he could point at the feathers, and ask Taylor if she was having a pillow fight with that hopefully-not-rabid fox, or just playing chicken? Teenagers loved dad jokes, right? Or at least, they enjoyed rolling their eyes at dad jokes.

Instead, the most eloquent sentence he managed to utter was: "Um..."

His train of thought was promptly derailed by a loud, triumphant shout. Danny whirled around to stare at Taylor's desk, where he noticed a large cardboard box had now taken pride of place. A turtle, of all things, had climbed up from inside the box to perch with its head and front legs over the edge. The reptile seemed to be beaming with happiness, as it looked Danny up and down.

Turning to Taylor and the fox, the turtle waved a claw at Danny. "Finally! You found me a worshipper of Om!"

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*Considering Lisa's current shape and the personality that shone through from within, her smile had far more nosiness than innocence. If a team of PRT power rating assessors had been present, they would've immediately nominated her for Stranger 1 status; they would have attributed her new rating to the surprising absence of empty hen houses or ransacked chicken coops behind her, when her smile clearly indicated that there should be at least three.


	5. Chaotic Weevil

**Chaotic Weevil**

A/N: This can be read as a Discworld/Dresden Files/Worm crossover, or as an omake for Rhydeble's Wasps & Wizards, with extra wizzardry.

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Harry Dresden, occasionally known as Myrddin, clapped his hands together. "Right, then! The first rule of Potion-Brewing Club is: Don't talk about Potion-Brewing Club."

Taylor Hebert, his new apprentice, quirked an eyebrow at him. "Because most people don't believe in magic, so if you tell them you're a wizard, they'll think you're either crazy, lying, or a huge dork?"

Rincewind - a guy from out of town who was visiting Chicago, and who was evidently a wizard; or possibly even a wizzard, according to his hat - shot a morose look at the others. "Because a name like 'Potion-Brewing Club' sounds like a euphemism for a gang of drug dealers?"

Folding his arms under his chest and hunching his shoulders, Harry glowered. "Well, I did have a brilliant punch-line, uh... Lined up, but if you two are going to be like that, I'll just keep it to myself!"

Taylor leaned over sideways, stage whispering in Rincewind's ear while not-quite-surreptitiously jabbing a thumb in Harry's direction: " _Hu-u-uge_ dork."

"What's this list for?" Rincewind scratched the back of his head, staring at a piece of paper that had been taped to the kitchen wall. "It's just a bunch of simple words, like 'SMELL', 'TASTE'... Is it some sort of reminder on how to eat your lunch, step by step? 'Remember to look both ways before you cross the road', that sort of thing?"

Harry ripped the sheet down, and tapped a finger against the list of words written on it. "Of course not! It's a basic outline of how to prepare a magical elixir - a generic template for a potion recipe, if you will."

"I suspect I rather wouldn't," mumbled Rincewind.

"Well, tough luck," said Harry, rolling up his sleeves with brisk movements. "Taylor, here, is hoping to be a _bona fide_ magic-user when she grows up. As part of that ambition, she needs to learn how to brew a proper potion."

"Uh... Excuse me?" Taylor held a hand over her head, then moved it to hover over Harry's scalp. "I'm taller than you are! If I grow up any further, your ceiling and I are going to have a falling-out... Or at least a colliding-in."

"True, you're tall for your age." Harry glanced down at Taylor's feet. "Although, let's be honest, here: Most of your current feud with my ceiling might stem from Rincewind's trunk, here. Specifically, the fact that you're standing on it."

"How else do you expect me to reach all these tins and flasks and bottles, and all the other bric-a-brac you wanted me to fetch from your _top_ top shelf?" Taylor balanced carefully on top of the large chest's lid, grimacing as she fished a jar filled with eyeballs down from the shelf near the ceiling. "Eugh! My bug swarm might be able to carry some of this junk, but I'd really rather avoid the risk of dropping anything on the floor - especially since I'd almost certainly have to clean up the mess, afterwards."

Rincewind watched the proceedings with a mixture of fear and disbelief. Granted, 'fearful' seemed to be a constant component of all his facial expressions. "I can't believe the Luggage is letting you use him as a foot stool," he said. " _Nobody_ treads on the Luggage like that. Well, not unless they're tired of having feet attached to their ankles."

Harry stepped aside, as the multi-legged chest traipsed past, Taylor still perched on its lid. "Perhaps the, ah, Luggage sees her as a kindred spirit?"

"Taylor, and the Luggage? _Kindred spirits?_ " Rincewind said in a flat, 'are-you-kidding-me?' tone of voice. "I've seen arch-demons and demi-gods flee in terror, when they heard that the Luggage was coming. What would a thing like _that_ have in common with a teenage girl who's got a nickname like _Skittles?_ "

"It's pronounced: 'Skitter'," said Taylor, waiting for the Luggage to stop so she'd be in front of the last shelf. "And unlike you two, Trunky is polite and helpful."

Once she'd fetched what she needed from the shelf, she hopped down from the chest, then turned around and crouched down to pat the Luggage on the lid. "Isn't that right, Trunky?"

Shaking his head, Rincewind glared as the Luggage rubbed up against the palm of Taylor's hand, like a mild-mannered sabre-tooth tiger trying to ingratiate itself with someone holding a tin opener. "What is it with women calling the Luggage 'Trunky'?"

"Thanks to the dynamic duo of Taylor and Trunky, we now have plenty of ingredients to choose from." Harry swept his arm in a wide gesture, waving at the numerous odd-looking jars and bottles, lined up on the kitchen table.

Dusting off her hands, Taylor watched him expectantly. "So, which ones do we need?"

Grinning, Harry held up the list again. "That's up to you to find out. For starters, let's see if you can brew a simple cheering potion."

Taking the paper from her teacher, Taylor eyed the list suspiciously. "Hmm... If I'm translating this arcane runic script correctly, one of the first ingredients should be a paste, of some sort." She rummaged around in the clutter, grabbing a brightly coloured tube from the clutter. "Toothpaste, perhaps?"

Harry snatched the list back from her. "There's nothing wrong with my handwriting! Rincewind could read it just fine! It's perfectly legible!" He pointed at the second word on the sheet. "See? It says: 'TASTE', not 'PASTE'. You need to pick several ingredients that you associate with happiness and good cheer - including one for each of the five senses."

Taylor held up the tube, waggling it a little. "And what if my spirits are buoyed by artificial spearmint flavouring?"

Deflating a little, Harry eventually nodded. "...Then, you should pick 'paste as the taste."

"Potatoes," Rincewind blurted out.

Harry and Taylor glanced at each other for a moment, then looked at the visiting wizzard. "Potatoes?"

"Potatoes." Rincewind picked up a yellow tuber from the more vegetable-y section of the clutter. "Nothing makes my taste buds happier than warm, freshly cooked spuds."

"You mean, like... French fries?" Harry brightened. "Or sour cream and onion chips? Ooh, or a baked potato with a dollop of garlic butter, and..."

Rincewind shoved the spud in Harry's face. " _Potatoes_."

"Actually..." Taylor picked up a couple more tubers, and put them in an empty pot on the stove. "...That _does_ sound better than toothpaste. More edible, certainly."

Sighing, Harry pinched the bridge of his nose. "Spuds, huh? Didn't take you for a root vegetable aficionado, Taylor... Unless you've started channelling your inner potato weevil?"

"Actually, this means we've covered 'sight', as well." Taylor sniggered. "Because, y'see... Potatoes have _eyes_."

Rincewind nodded thoughtfully. "Makes sense." He also took the opportunity to dump a few more spuds in the pot.

Harry shot them both a decidedly unimpressed look.

Rincewind browsed the potion recipe. "Taste, sight... You'll need something for 'smell', as well. What about a bit of _pommy duh terrier_ , perhaps? They smell wonderful when they're cooked, I've always thought."

"'Pommy'?" Taylor frowned. "Isn't that what Australians call British people?"

"Dunno." Rincewind shrugged. "Must be a compliment, because it's Genuan for 'potatoes'."

"How about small potatoes?" Taylor held up a handful, giggling. "They can fit in your nostrils, which is associated with smelling. Also, 'small' is just one letter away from 'smell'."

"Are you two messing with me?" Harry glared, aiming a righteously indignant finger at them, panning his arm back and forth to cover them both with his accusation. "'Cause it _totally_ feels like you're messing with me."

"Hey, the only mess around here is the one you asked me to make." Taylor waved at the miscellaneous tins, vials and plastic Tupperware containers that littered the kitchen. "Also, speaking of 'feels'... We need something for 'touch', next."

Rincewind picked up a fistful of potato peels, and poured them in the pot. "Done."

Flapping his arms in surprise, Harry gave the Wizzard a look that was both wide-eyed and gob-smacked. "Why, for Mystra's sake?! Why would you do that?!"

"You know, freshly peeled potato skins are definitely a good ingredient for the sense of 'touch'." Taylor cackled. "You can't get much more tactile than literal _skin_."

Harry hid his face in his hands, groaning. "What even is my life, anymore."

Taylor gave her mentor a conciliatory pat on the arm. "Tell you what... How about we pick an ingredient for 'hearing' that _isn't_ potatoes?"

Peeking out hesitantly with one eye from between his fingers, Harry mumbled: "... _Not_ potatoes?"

The tall, bespectacled girl nodded. "... _Not_ potatoes."

Rincewind's shoulders slumped. "But... _Potatoes_ ," he whined.

Snapping her fingers, Taylor graced them both with a triumphant smile. "How about corn? That's kinda like potatoes, sort of. Only, you know... _Not_."

Harry searched through the forest of esoteric odds and ends. "Sorry, I don't think we have any corn cobs, and we ran out of tinned corn yesterday..."

He paused, and eyed Taylor suspiciously. "Wa-a-ait just a dog-gone minute, here... What does corn have to do with hearing? You don't seem like the kind of teenager who'd be into Korn, with a 'K'."

Doing her best to look innocent, Taylor tugged at her earlobe. "Haven't you ever heard the expression: 'Ears of corn'?"

Before Harry had a chance to come up with a disgruntled reply, Taylor turned and pointed at the Luggage, as the large chest with countless little legs and feet sauntered over to them, carrying a paper package on its lid. "Oh, look! Trunky's found something!"

Harry squinted. "Corn flour?"

Picking up the parcel, Taylor patted the Luggage in thanks, and studied the package's paper wrapping. She promptly burst out laughing.

Rincewind took the parcel from her, and examined the label. He smiled, nodding approvingly, and held up the package for Harry to read:

POTATO STARCH FLOUR

The sound of Taylor's laughter was joined by the rhythmic noise of Harry's head, repeatedly being beaten against one of the kitchen cabinets.

"Um, the potion still needs an ingredient for 'mind'." Rincewind interjected.

"You know," said Taylor, peering down into the pot. "When I look at the sorcerous alchemy which we hath wrought this day... For some reason, I can't help but think of potato soup."

"Me too!" Rincewind brightened, and chucked a couple more 'taters in the pot. "I think about potatoes all the time."

"This is worse than the time when _Bob_ tried to invent a recipe* for an Ultimate Happiness Potion," Harry groused. "And Bob's an unrepentant sweater-melon-oholic."

"We also need something we can use as a base." Taylor poked at a few bottles. "Some kinda liquid that can form the... Well, the basis of the potion."

"Wouldn't you usually cook potatoes in water?" Rincewind said.

"Sure, that works." Taylor fetched a pitcher, filled it with tap water, and poured it into the pot. She picked up the list, and checked it twice. "Let's see... We've got all five senses covered, plus mind, and a base... That just leaves the last ingredient, 'SPIRIT'."

Rincewind chewed contemplatively on his lip. "That's almost philosophical... What is the spirit of potatoes?"

"No." Harry planted his fists on his hips. "I forbid it. Taylor's under-age. I'm not giving you _vodka_."

"Even if it's diluted by all the potato soup? ...I mean, all of this magical potion?" Taylor smirked.

Harry scowled. "Enn-Oh, means: _Out of the question_."

"How about some more of this plain old tap water, then?" Taylor picked up the pitcher. "Finest vintage that the house can offer! …Kinda bland, though."

"Bland is good," said Rincewind. "When I look for things to put in my mouth and my stomach, I'm not looking for exciting surprises."

Harry massaged his temples, watching Taylor start to heat up the pot. "The point was for you to brew a magical potion, not making... Weird potato soup!"

"You know what?" Rincewind smiled. "I'm okay with this outcome."

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*The recipe for this potion can, in fact, be found on the DresdenFiles subreddit (look for thread no. 52kg1e, comment no. d7lodq9). Fair warning: This potion is probably not safe for work, or for any other location where random bystanders might frown upon graphic descriptions** of what, exactly, a lecherous talking skull might do with such items as "a coconut, halved and then arranged with juvenile precision", or "a basket of puppies covered in a sweater".

**By an amusing coincidence, while that particular potion didn't turn into a recipe for potato soup, it did bear a striking resemblance to the recipe for chicken alfredo.


End file.
